Black Students Suspended at High Rate Than White Elementary Students in Missouri

(AP) – A new study shows that Missouri suspended black elementary students at a higher rate than any other U.S. state, with the gap between suspensions of black and white students also tops in the country.
The report released Monday by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA’s Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that Missouri elementary schools suspended 14.4 percent of their black students at least once during the 2011-12 school year, which is the latest data available.
That compares with 1.8 percent of their white Missouri counterparts and 7.6 percent of black students nationwide.
In Kansas, 1.6 percent of all elementary students were suspended at least once. That rate was 6.5 percent for black students, 5.4 percentage points higher than the rate for white students.